Digital Commons Network^™

Den Characteristics Of Upland And Low- Land Striped Skunks Along The Missouri River Floodplain, Dave Sempek, James A. Wilson

The Prairie Naturalist

Striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) are opportunistic with respect to habitat use (Bixler and Gittleman 2000), inhabiting an array of landscapes in the proximity of a permanent water supply, such as forest borders, old-fields, fencerows, and open grassy fields broken by wooded ravines (Schwartz and Schwartz 1981, Larivière and Messier 2000). Food quantity and accessibility are major factors determining the quality of striped skunk habitat (Larivière et al. 1999) and are important in the den site selection.

Dens play an important role in skunk survival and reproduction due to the warmth, predator protection, and safe location for parturition they provide (Hwang …

Notes: Bed-Site Selection By Neonatal White-Tailed Deer In Central North Dakota, Brian A. Schaffer, Jonathan A. Jenks, Troy W. Grovenburg, William F. Jensen

The Prairie Naturalist

Understanding bed-site selection and vegetation characteristics provides valuable information for population management (Verme 1977, Huegel et al. 1985a, Nelson and Woolf 1987). Predation and other natural-caused mortalities of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) neonates are most likely to occur within the first 60 days of life; a time period when selected habitat characteristics are vital to survival (Verme 1977, Hue- gel et al. 1985a, Nelson and Woolf 1987, Grovenburg et al. 2010). Prior to the study of Grovenburg et al. (2010), limited research had been completed on the bed-site selection of neonatal white-tailed deer in the grasslands of the Northern Great …

Precipitation And Fire Impacts On Small Mammals In Shortgrass Prairie, Whitney J. Priesmeyer, Raymond S. Matlack, Richard T. Kazmair

The Prairie Naturalist

The southern Great Plains and the northern part of the Texas Panhandle have received less attention from a biological perspective than other parts of the state. Although there is substantial information on the effects of fire on small mammals in the tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies, there is a lack of understanding of fire influences in the shortgrass prairie, specifically on small mammals. We conducted our study on the Cross Bar Cooperative Management Area (CMA), a 4,856 ha shortgrass prairie within the Texas panhandle. Our objective was to determine the effect of three different fire return frequencies and precipitation on diversity …

Bobcat Predation On Bighorn Lamb In The Western Black Hills Of South Dakota, Brynn L. Parr, John Kanta, Joe Sandrini, Daniel J. Thompson, Jonathan A. Jenks

The Prairie Naturalist

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) are found throughout western North America (Krausman et al. 1993, Goodson 1994, Krausman et al. 1996, Besser et al. 2012). In their current range, commonly documented large predators of bighorn sheep include cougars (Puma concolor), gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), wolves (Canis lupus), and coyotes (C. latrans; Ross et al. 1997, Neale et al. 1998, Corti and Shackleton 2002, Dekker 2009, Karsch et al. 2013). Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) also have been documented as predators to both wild and domestic sheep (Kennedy 1948, Cunningham 1970, Nette et al. 1984, Watte and Phillips …

The Role Of Reviewer Criticism And How To Keep It In Perspective, Christopher N. Jacques

The Prairie Naturalist

Greetings GPNSS members! Hopefully this editorial finds you well and gearing up for the summer field season. As I write this editorial, I find myself reflecting on my time as Editor-in-Chief of TPN over the past 5 years. The experience has been personally and professionally rewarding in many ways, and I want to spend some time discussing something that I have experienced not only as a fellow author and Associate Editor, but also as a journal Editor.

Reviewer criticism. Thinking back to when I was appointed Editor, how I viewed criticism then is very different than how I think about …

The Gamekeepers: Wisconsin Wildlife Conservation From Wcd To Cwd. David L. Gjeston., Carrol L. Henderson

The Prairie Naturalist

Author David L. Gjeston has done a masterful job of capturing the history of wildlife conservation and, in particular, the work of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (formerly the Wisconsin Conservation Department or WCD) in protecting, restoring, and managing the wildlife resources of Wisconsin. Gjeston took on an incredibly complex task. He tells a fascinating story of wildlife conservation comprised of many layers of wildlife management from over a century and a half of evolving perceptions regarding wildlife uses, exploitation, restoration, problems, conflicts, and recreational opportunities that continue to the present.

Perhaps the most appealing part of this book …

Web Technologies Task View, Patrick Mair, Scott Chamberlain

The R Journal

This article presents the CRAN Task View on Web Technologies. We describe the most important aspects of Web Technologies and Web Scraping and list some of the packages that are currently available on CRAN. Finally, we plot the network of Web Technology related package dependencies.

Oligomask: A Framework For Assessing And Removing The Effect Of Genetic Variants On Microarray Probes, Daniel Bottomly, Beth Wilmot, Shannon K. Mcweeney

The R Journal

As expression microarrays are typically designed relative to a reference genome, any individual genetic variant that overlaps a probe’s genomic position can possibly cause a reduction in hybridization due to the probe no longer being a perfect match to a given sample’s mRNA at that locus. If the samples or groups used in a microarray study differ in terms of genetic variants, the results of the microarray experiment can be negatively impacted. The oligoMask package is an R/SQLite framework which can utilize publicly available genetic variants and works in conjunction with the oligo package to read in the expression data …

Investr: An R Package For Inverse Estimation, Brandon M. Greenwell, Christine M. Schubert Kabban

The R Journal

Inverse estimation is a classical and well-known problem in regression. In simple terms, it involves the use of an observed value of the response to make inference on the corresponding unknown value of the explanatory variable. To our knowledge, however, statistical software is somewhat lacking the capabilities for analyzing these types of problems. In this paper, we introduce investr (which stands for inverse estimation in R), a package for solving inverse estimation problems in both linear and nonlinear regression models.1

Brainr: Interactive 3 And 4d Images Of High Resolution Neuroimage Data, John Muscelli, Elizabeth Sweeney, Ciprian Crainiceanu

The R Journal

We provide software tools for displaying and publishing interactive 3-dimensional (3D) and 4-dimensional (4D) figures to html webpages, with examples of high-resolution brain imaging. Our framework is based in the R statistical software using the rgl package, a 3D graphics library. We build on this package to allow manipulation of figures including rotation and translation, zooming, coloring of brain substructures, adjusting transparency levels, and addition/or removal of brain structures. The need for better visualization tools of ultra high dimensional data is ever present; we are providing a clean, simple, web-based option. We also provide a package (brainR) for …

The Stringdist Package For Approximate String Matching, Mark P.J. Van Der Loo

The R Journal

Comparing text strings in terms of distance functions is a common and fundamental task in many statistical text-processing applications. Thus far, string distance functionality has been somewhat scattered around R and its extension packages, leaving users with inconistent interfaces and encoding handling. The stringdist package was designed to offer a low-level interface to several popular string distance algorithms which have been re-implemented in C for this purpose. The package offers distances based on counting q-grams, edit-based distances, and some lesser known heuristic distance functions. Based on this functionality, the package also offers inexact matching equivalents of R’s native exact matching …

News From The Bioconductor Project, Bioconductor Team

The R Journal

The Bioconductor project provides tools for the analysis and comprehension of high throughput genomic data. The 824 software packages available in Bioconductor can be viewed at http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/. Navigate packages using ‘biocViews’ terms and title search. Each package has an html page with a description, links to vignettes, reference manuals, and usage statistics. Start using Bioconductor and R version 3.1.0 with

What Are Blue Ross's Geese?, Paul A. Johnsgard

Nebraska Bird Review

The existence of blue morph ("phase") Ross's Geese (Chen rossii) was first well documented by McLandress & McLandress (1979). They reported on several blue-morph birds seen and collected in California and Canada that morphologically appeared to be pure Ross's Geese and on others with intermediate traits that appeared to be hybrids with Lesser Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens caerulescens). They also noted that in the California wintering grounds counts held during 1976–77 there were only 3 blue morphs (0.008 percent) among the 38,825 Ross's Geese counted. At that time, only 0.02 percent of the Lesser Snow Geese …

Board Summary Report June 2014, Regenstrief Center For Healthcare Engineering

RCHE Reports

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of The Granule-Bound Starch Synthase I Gene In Chenopodium, Douglass C. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Chenopodium L. is a relatively under-studied genus that includes the cultivated seed crop quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.). Quinoa is an allotetraploid (2n=4x=36, AABB genomes) that is cultivated by subsistence farmers and commercial growers in the Andean regions of South America. Approximately 60% of a quinoa seed is starch, a glucose polymer that is an important carbohydrate energy source in the human diet. Seed starch is normally comprised of amylose and amylopectin in a 1:3 ratio, but starches with different amylose:amylopectin ratios have different properties and potential uses. The accumulation of the amylose fraction of starch is controlled by a single …

Patterns Of Student Curricular Experience In Psychology As Predictors Of Performance On The Ets Major Field Test, Jason J. Van Der Horst

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the relationship between student performance and their performance on the Major Field Test (MFT). The MFT purports to adequately assess student mastery and achievement in the college major, in this case psychology. The major advantages of the MFT over internally-created instruments are its standardized content, its established national norms, and its connection to the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). The MFT is the most widely used standardized test for learning outcomes assessment within psychology departments. The first hypothesis, that MFT scores are reflective of summary curricular values (i.e. GPA), was not supported when …

The Relationships Between Diet, Physical Activity And Dual Plane (3d) Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (Dxa) Bone Outcomes In Pre-Pubertal Girls, Jie Ren

Theses - ALL

Osteoporotic fractures are a leading cause of morbidity in the U.S. Bone mass levels during childhood play a key role in determining peak bone mass and hence the risk of osteoporosis in later life. The aim of the study was to evaluate how key bone nutrients and organized physical activity affect bone outcomes in pre-pubertal girls using Dual Plane Dual X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA). This cross-sectional analysis used a subset of participants (n=50) from a longitudinal study of bone growth in relation to physical activity. Dietary data were collected using the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire (YAQ, 1995) and organized activity was recorded semi-annually …

Content Externalism And Privileged Access, Kevin Anthony Sadekoski

Theses - ALL

Ever since Descartes, many of us have not questioned the assumption that the knowledge we are able obtain from accessing our own mental states is a priori in nature since we can access these states outside of experience. Content Externalism has called that assumption into question, it carries the implication that our mental states necessarily depend on particular objects and events that exist in our external environment for at least part of their content. Some philosophers believe that this principle of Privileged Access is inherently incompatible with Content Externalism. Others are convinced that both must be true and compatibility must …

Legal Protections For The 'Personal Best' Of Each Employee: Title Vii’S Prohibition On Sex Discrimination, The Legacy Of Price Waterhouse V. Hopkins, And The Prospect Of Enda, Mary Anne Case

Articles

No abstract provided.

Abcc9 Gene Polymorphism Is Associated With Hippocampal Sclerosis Of Aging Pathology, Peter T. Nelson, Steven Estus, Erin L. Abner, Ishita Parikh, Manasi Malik, Janna H. Neltner, Eseosa Ighodaro, Wang-Xia Wang, Bernard R. Wilfred, Li-San Wang, Walter A. Kukull, Kannabiran Nandakumar, Mark L. Farman, Wayne W. Poon, Maria M. Corrada, Claudia H. Kawas, David H. Cribbs, David A. Bennett, Julie A. Schneider, Eric B. Larson, Paul K. Crane, Otto Valladares, Frederick A. Schmitt, Richard J. Kryscio, Gregory A. Jicha, Charles D. Smith, Stephen W. Scheff, Joshua A. Sonnen, Jonathan L. Haines, Margaret A. Pericak-Vance, Richard Mayeux, Lindsay A. Farrer, Linda J. Van Eldik, Craig Horbinski, Robert C. Green, Marla Gearing, Leonard W. Poon, Patricia L. Kramer, Randall L. Woltjer, Thomas J. Montine, Amanda B. Partch, Alexander J. Rajic, Katierose Richmire, Sarah E. Monsell, Gerard D. Schellenberg, David W. Fardo

Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Faculty Publications

Hippocampal sclerosis of aging (HS-Aging) is a high-morbidity brain disease in the elderly but risk factors are largely unknown. We report the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) with HS-Aging pathology as an endophenotype. In collaboration with the Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium, data were analyzed from large autopsy cohorts: (#1) National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC); (#2) Rush University Religious Orders Study and Memory and Aging Project; (#3) Group Health Research Institute Adult Changes in Thought study; (#4) University of California at Irvine 90+ Study; and (#5) University of Kentucky Alzheimer's Disease Center. Altogether, 363 HS-Aging cases and 2,303 controls, all pathologically …

Report On The 2013 Rapid Assessment Survey Of Marine Species At New England Bays And Harbors, Christopher D. Wells, Adrienne L. Pappal, Yuangyu Cao, James T. Carlton, Zara Currimjee, Jennifer A. Dijkstra, Sara K. Edquist, Arriaan Gittenberger, Seth Goodnight, Sara P. Grady, Larry G. Harris, Leslie H. Harris, Lindsay A. Green, Niels-Viggo Hobbs, Gretchen Lambert, Judith Pederson, Macarena Ros, Jan P. Smith, Lauren Stefaniak, Alexandra Stevens

PREP Reports & Publications

Introduced species (i.e., non-native species that have become established in a new location) have increasingly been recognized as a concern as they have become more prevalent in marine and terrestrial environments (Mooney and Cleland 2001; Simberloff et al. 2005). The ability of introduced species to alter population, community, and ecosystem structure and function, as well as cause significant economic damage is well documented (Carlton 1989, 1996b, 2000; Cohen and Carlton 1995; Cohen et al. 1995; Elton 1958; Meinesz et al. 1993; Occhipinti-Ambrogi and Sheppard 2007; Pimentel et al. 2005; Thresher 2000). The annual economic costs incurred from managing the approximately …

Obligate Male Death And Sexual Cannibalism In Dark Fishing Spiders, Steven Schwartz, William E. Wagner, Eileen A. Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Male dark fishing spiders (Dolomedes tenebrosus Araneae, Pisauridae) always die during their first and only copulation, making all males monogynous. Such obligate male death can be adaptive if it facilitates sexual cannibalism, and if sexual cannibalism results in male reproductive benefits, such as an advantage in sperm competition through reduced female remating. We first conducted an experiment to determine the extent to which D. tenebrosus (1) males are cannibalized by females and (2) females engage in remating, both of which are prerequisites for several adaptive hypotheses of male self-sacrifice. We then conducted an experiment to test the hypothesis that …

Characterization Of Winter Microbial Communities In The Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia Purpurea), Reid Jeffrey Tornquist

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Carnivorous pitcher plants trap insects in cone-shaped leaves and digest them to gain vital nutrients. For digestion to occur, plants in the genus Sarracenia require mutualistic microorganisms living in their leaves. Few studies have examined how these communities change over time. This study specifically examines the bacterial composition in the most widely distributed species, Sarracenia purpurea, in the winter. The leaves of this plant species live for several years, and it is unknown whether microbes overwinter in pitcher fluid or if community structure must be reestablished each spring. This study aims to characterize the winter microbiome in two population …

Parb Spreading Requires Dna Bridging, Thomas G.W. Graham, Xindan Wang, Dan Song, Candice M. Etson, Antoine M. Van Oijen, David Z. Rudner, Joseph J. Loparo

Physics: Faculty Publications

The parABS system is a widely employed mechanism for plasmid partitioning and chromosome segregation in bacteria. ParB binds to parS sites on plasmids and chromosomes and associates with broad regions of adjacent DNA, a phenomenon known as spreading. Although essential for ParB function, the mechanism of spreading remains poorly understood. Using single-molecule approaches, we discovered that Bacillus subtilis ParB (Spo0J) is able to trap DNA loops. Point mutants in Spo0J that disrupt DNA bridging are defective in spreading and recruitment of structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) condensin complexes in vivo. DNA bridging helps to explain how a limited number of …

Ultraviolet Led Biofouling Mitigation, Andrew Lam

Computer Engineering

The goal is to determine if low-cost UV LEDs can mitigate marine biofouling on small glass or acrylic camera lenses. A microprocessor-controlled experimental setup to control the illumination of low-cost UV LEDs of various wavelength and packaging was fashioned. The system consists of a programmed microcontroller, a manufactured LED breakout interface, and a submergible UV LED array enclosed in a borosilicate glass tube. A preliminary qualitative assessment of four different UV LEDs was conducted during a three-week deployment of the experimental setup in the raw seawater system at the Cal Poly Center for Costal and Marine Sciences in Avila Beach, …

Prolonged Marital Stress Is Associated With Short-Lived Responses To Positive Stimuli, R. C. Lapate, C. M. Van Reekum, S. M. Schaefer, L. L. Greischar, Catherine Norris, D. R. W. Bachhuber, C. D. Ryff, R. J. Davidson

Psychology Faculty Works

Marital stress is associated with a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders, in particular major depression. One pathway through which marital stress may impact emotional health is by compromising emotion-responding processes. We examined a longitudinal sample of adults (N = 116; 59 males; 39–84 years) to verify how marital stress predicts reactivity to, and recovery from, emotional provocation. Individuals watched positive, neutral, and negative pictures while an objective measure of affective state, corrugator supercilii muscle activity, was recorded continuously. Our results indicate that marital stress is associated with short-lived responses to positive pictures, indexed by a less persistent decrease in corrugator …

Unusual Nesting Behavior Of Eastern Phoebe, Ron Hoff, Dollyann Myers

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Cave Talk, June 2014, Robert A. Holt

Cave Talk

Contents: Message from the Executive Director -- 8 Amazing American Caves -- Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park Introduces New Ride - Canyon Flyer -- NCA Buyers Talk - our G.O.A.L. ~ Extraordinary Guest Service -- NCA Insurance Column -- Lightning – the Underrated killer -- National Cave And Karst Research Institute (Nckri) -- WNS Report

Diagnosis Of Infection After Splenectomy For Trauma Should Be Based On Lack Of Platelets Rather Than White Blood Cell Count, Aman Banerjee, Katherine B. Kelly, Hannah Y. Zhou, Shanteria D. Dixon, Ariadni Papana Dagiasis, Linda M. Quinn, Jeffrey A. Claridge

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Background: There is a lack of evidence-based criteria to assist the diagnosis of infection following trauma splenectomy (TS). However, the literature suggests that white blood cell count (WBC) is associated with infection in patients who undergo TS. We sought to find whether there exist key differences in laboratory and clinical parameters that can assist the diagnosis of infection after TS. Methods: We evaluated all consecutive trauma patients who had undergone TS at a Level 1 trauma center from 2005 to 2011 for the development of infection. To do this, we compared the values of demographic, laboratory, and clinical variables of …

Patterns Of Contemporary Ijtihad In Malaysia: Analysis On Fatwas Of Malaysian National Fatwa Council, S. Man

Research Publications (2011 to 2015)

The exercise of ijtihad (independent reasoning by qualified jurist) has been a siginificant process in the development of Islamic Law as witnessed throughout the history of Muslim society. Ijtihad has always been an important tool and source for Muslims to find Islamic rulings on various current and newcoming issues which they found no direct answers both in the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions. As a largest community in Malaysia, Muslim society which form 60% of 30 million of total population experiences a lot of new issues in their current life, from issues of personal religious duties to various mundane …